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Aboriginal art auction record

By Joel Gibson

30 July 2003 - Foreign buyers have ensured that Sotheby's annual auction of Aboriginal art will be a record one.

Before the second session began at the Museum of Contemporary Art last night, the sale had already attracted bids worth $6.08 million, against last year's total sales of $5.2 million.

Emily Kngwarreye's Untitled (Spring Collaboration) 1991 was sold for $509,300 on Monday - a new mark for a work by the first "superstar" of contemporary Aboriginal painting.

A Sotheby's manager, Benedict Pownall, said: "We are delighted at this sale because it augurs well for the future of Australian indigenous art."

An estimated 50 per cent of the works had been sold to international bidders based mostly in Europe and America, he said.

But not all expectations for the 560 works on sale - 384 were offered last year - were met.

The signature item, Ngurrara Canvas I, spanning 4.7 metres by 7.7 metres and depicting the landscape around Fitzroy Crossing, was sold to a Perth businessman, Paul Naughton, for $213,000, well short of the pre-sale estimate of $500,000.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

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